🚀 go-pugleaf

[This message comes directly from the desk of Matthew Miller, the Fedora Project Leader. - Ed.]

This "love letter to the community" started in 2020 as a way to shine a little light in a very dark time, and to encourage everyone - including me - by reminding us all of the great work done by great people in Fedora. But it's become one of my favorite things to do all year. We're no longer just trying to get through a dark time. We're looking forward to an exciting era in Fedora's future.

The work we did this year sets a great foundation for building our future. I don't just mean the Fedora Linux 36 and 37 releases, although we should definitely be proud of those. But there's a continued sense of excitement around the community. We're growing and bringing new energy.

This year, Nest With Fedora grew even more in a time where everyone is feeling virtual event fatigue. And we introduced Hatch - regional events where you could meet with other local-ish contributors. Reading the recaps, I wish I could have gone to all of them. But it was great to spend time with some of you in Rochester. I've really, really missed our in-person interactions. Virtual events help keep our global community connected, and help bring in new people who might not be able to join us otherwise, but they can't substitute for face-to-face meetups. More on that in a moment.

It's not just a few days of events that has me excited, though. When I look around the project, I see a lot happening. The Fedora CoreOS and Cloud teams promoted their deliverables to Edition status. We wrapped up a huge revamp of our community outreach that began in 2020. The Docs team is more active than it has been in years (and they've added a search bar to the site!). We have a complete renovation of our websites in the works. The Marketing team is exploring new ways to promote Fedora, including a presence in the Fediverse. We're finally almost ready to merge Ask Fedora and Fedora Discussion, bringing more of our conversations together.

That's a lot of work for one year. The best part is how organic this work is. This wasn't some demand from on high (that's not how Fedora works), but it was people in the community saying "I see work to be done. I'm going to do it!" Fedora is us.

We will celebrate so much more in 2023. We're still working on the details, but we expect to have a greater in-person experience next year, including funding for hackfests and the return of Flock to Fedora! And of course, it's the 20th anniversary of Fedora. The world - and the technology that drives it - has changed so much since then. But our values haven't. The Fedora community remains an inclusive, welcoming, and open-minded community. I'm proud to be a part of it. Happy new year, everyone!

https://fedoramagazine.org/getting-ready-for-an-exciting-2023/